Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists; Screaming Females @ South Street Seaport

Exactly 51 weeks ago, in-what-proved-to-be the last Siren festival at Coney Island, the collective mind of a couple thousand people was blown away by several bands. Yours truly had his slice of the overmind utterly wiped out by two acts - Screaming Females and Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. Marissa from Screaming Females helped Ted Leo at one point during his set, proving that the chemistry was in the air. That certainly proved to be the case as now, a year later, the bands are back together, once again under the flag of the Village Voice.

Forgetting the insult that this bill was the "kick-off show" to the new, Seaport-based 4Knots Festival of July 16 (Ted Leo is no pre-show show! Ted Leo IS the show!), the bands so thoroughly slayed the mix of hipsters, rockers, and tourists, they no doubt will prove to have outshone the coming roster on Saturday.

Screaming Females' devotion to 70's rock and Dinosaur Jr-inspired revivalism of that sound, make for mongo riffs and shred of the highest order, with a gift ribbon of Marissa's Corin Tucker-heavy vocals (with occasional screaming).

What can I say about Ted Leo? It's been a long time coming. Ten years after his first Pharmacists-record, The Tyranny of Distance, yours truly is finally appreciating what this dude has been slinging. To demonstrate what I had been lacking for so long before last year's monster set, Ted played all of the Tyranny record between some select rockers, and wrapped it all up with "Where Was My Brain?", two and a half killer minutes from his last triumph, The Brutalist Bricks.

Did I mention these bands are from Jersey? Uh oh...this Jersey thing I've been hearing about...man, don't make me like Jersey man...uh oh....too late?